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A holiday centered on love can be laborious to get through when your heart is broken or hurting, so here’s some real-talk to balance out the romance:

I wrote “Happy Ever After” as a reminder that life is full of surprises, and that people are complex, ever-changing creatures – sometimes the ones we think we know best reveal themselves to be strangers when we least expect it. Because life is also steeped in irony, a few weeks after recording this song, I realized I had written myself less of a gentle reminder and more of an agonizing told-you-so. I’m releasing it into the world on Valentine’s Day because for the first time in a decade, this day is a painful one for me, and in my experience there are few better ways to feel pain than through sharing the art that grows from it.

Many thanks to producers Dango Rose and Evan Reeves for inviting me into the Elephant Collective, to musicians Darren Garvey (percussion, guitar) and Mekenzie Solidago (cello, vocals) for lending their talents to the track, to Dan Rodriguez for the lines that helped me tie the room together, and to all of you for your consistent support of my music and heart. Community is everything in this crazy world, and I’m endlessly grateful for you.

Credits:

Words/Music/Video by Emily Yates

Produced by Dango Rose and Evan Reeves (Rose-Reeves Productions) in association with Elephant Collective

Embed for Youíre the Enemy
A few months ago I wrote and recorded “You’re The Enemy,” a song about Military Sexual Trauma (MST), for the non-profit Warrior Songs‘ new compilation album Women At War. The album will be released in a couple months but in light of current events, we have decided to pre-release my song digitally now. You can stream it above and/or download with a pay-what-you-want option:

I didn’t report being sexually assaulted in the military because I knew the investigation, if one even happened, would be even more demoralizing than being assaulted by people I knew.

I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford because there is no way in hell you can convince me a person would subject themselves to death threats AND the demeaning process of being questioned about past trauma by ridiculously-powerful frat boys unless they were either telling the truth or on a masochistic search for truly cruel and unusual punishment.

Imagine you’re being forced to flee your home. Not just your home, but your country, and not just for now, but forever.

Imagine you can only pack one carry-on sized bag, weighing no more than 50 pounds, from which you must rebuild your entire life. Everything else stays behind.

Imagine getting to your new, foreign home, only to discover that your funds are nowhere near enough to live on, your education and work skills don’t translate into a local job, and you’re immediately in debt to the government for the flight that brought you to safety. You have no health care, the culture you’re now immersed in is entirely unfamiliar to you and every day is a struggle to adjust to a life you never thought you’d be living.

Now imagine the reason you must do this is because the United States military … Read More